RACIAL GAP HAMPERS JUSTICE

If you walk into almost any criminal courtroom the racial makeup of the
participants hits you in the face. The ]udges and attorneys are white the
defendants are African American and Latino.

Sunday, a story by Oakland Tribune reporter Josh Richman put the numbers
with the picture. Alameda County, with a population that's 17.7 percent
African American and 16 percent Latino, actually had the best overall
representation of racial minorities in the public attorney's offices. The
District Attorney's office is 12.4 percent African American and 3.9 per-cent
Latino; the Public De-fender's office is 18.4 percent African American and
9.6 percent Latino.

Things go down-hill from there. In Contra Costa County, the population is
9.2 per-cent African American and 13 percent Latino, but the District
Attorney's office is only 3.2 percent African American and 6.4 per-cent
Latino. The Public Defender's office is 8.5 percent African American and 2.8
percent Latino.

And in San Joaquin County, the population is 5.3 percent African American
and 24.9 percent Latino; the District Attorney's office is only 1.6 percent
African American and 4.6 percent Latino and the Public Defender's office has
no African Americans and is only 4.5 percent Latino.

Looking at the numbers another way - while Alameda County is 48 percent
white, the District Attorney's office is 79.8 percent white and the Public
Defender's office is 65.8 percent white. In Contra Costa County, with a
white population of 66.4 percent, the District Attorney's office is 83
percent white and the Public Defender's office is 81.7 percent white. In San
Jonquil County, with a population that is 55.5 percent white, the District
Attorney's office is 89.2 percent white and the public defender's office is
93.3 percent white.

It's more than a simple numerical disparity. Critics, including attorneys in
some of these offices, say the racial gap affects the quality of jus-tice In
the courtrooms. African-American and Latino defendants see an over-whelming
number of white lawyers and judges and feel they can't get a fair shake.
Cultural and language differences hamper the ability of public defenders to
represent their clients and prosecutors to communicate with witnesses and
victims.

Here's another set of numbers that underscores this racial disparity. The
state's population is 7 percent African American, 28.8 percent Latino, 10.7
percent Asian and 52.9 percent white. The state's prison population is 31.1
percent African American, 34 percent Latino, 5 percent other minorities and
29.9 percent white. That's a huge racial gap.

Color is a definite predictor of where you sit in the courtroom. Of course,
the disproportionate representation of African Americans in the prisons
doesn't start there other studies have found that at every step of the state
5 criminal justice system from the first contact with police officers to the
parole board and probation system

- - African Americans are treated more harshly than whites suspected or
accused of comparable crimes.

Attorneys critical of the lack of diversity among public defenders and
prosecutors say the offices don't do enough to recruit African-American and
Latino attorneys. A member of the Charles Houston Bar Association, a group
of African-American lawyers, told The Tribune reporter Alameda County
District Attorney Tom Orloff was the only district attorney or public
defender to contact the group to recruit applicants.

The pool of lawyers is another major hurdle Of the lawyers who passed the
last Bar Exam, 4 percent were African American and 8per cent were Latino. A
significant number of those were scooped up by higher paying private firms.

If the numbers look like this now, imagine how they 11 look a couple of
years into the dismantling of affirmative action. Already, the number of
African-American lawyers admitted to Boalt Hall law school has dropped
precipitously.

We could be looking at a future where all the defendants are Back and brown
and all the lawyers and attorneys are white.


Checked-by: "Rolf Ernst"